Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to techniques of supplying power to a Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lighting system, and more particularly to methods and devices for automatically controlling a supply current used for powering such a system.
Related Art
The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Since they have a high efficiency and long life, LED lighting systems are increasingly used in many applications such as domestic lighting, for instance. In many lighting systems, LEDs also offer a higher optical efficiency than any other light source. As a consequence, LEDs represent an interesting alternative to the well known light sources such as fluorescent lamps, high intensity discharge lamps or incandescent lamps.
LED lighting systems known in the art may comprise a power supply module for supplying power to a luminaire which may comprise a plurality of LED components inside a flexible slab, for example made of silicone, also known as a thin flexible luminaire.
A local current control unit may be provided inside the LED luminaire itself. A disadvantage exists, however, for instance when the LED luminaire is a cut-table luminaire, because such solution does not allow taking into consideration the various specifications of any specific application in which the LED luminaire may be used, in particular the actual length of the slab once cut to fit the requirements of the application. Further, using current controllers inside the flexible luminaire for each LED module would increase the manufacturing cost.
A solution allowing decreasing the process cost associated with a thin flexible luminaire can consist of using a current controller that is external to the LED luminaire. A main disadvantage of this solution, however, is that the LED luminaire cannot be a cut-table LEDs luminaire, because the outside current source would then have a fixed current adapted to power the original, i.e. longest length of the LED slab.